Recap: Cavs 94, Pacers 73 (Or, The Time The Cavs Didn’t Need A Point Guard To Make A Point)

(By the way, I’m angry at Vevo for blocking the music video to this song, which involves models playing musical chairs. I believe that models playing musical chairs can and should serve as a metaphor for any possible situation.)

Overview: The Pacers were never able to recover from a 36-18 first-quarter blitz by the Cavaliers, who cruised to a 94-73 victory. LeBron James was one rebound shy of a triple-double, and Shaquille O’Neal scored 22 points on 10 shots.

Cavs-Related Bullets:

-Let’s start with that first quarter. What beautiful basketball. LeBron scored on the first possession of the game, and didn’t record his next field goal until the Cavs’ final possession of the first half. He had one of his best offensive quarters of the season anyways, picking the Pacers apart to the tune of nine assists in the first quarter alone.

It was an absolute passing clinic. LeBron’s assists accounted for 22 of the Cavs’ 36 points in the quarter. When you factor in LeBron’s scoring, he was responsible for 26 of the 36 points overall. He was making passes from everywhere. He set Shaq up with an interior pass for a dunk. He pushed in transition and found his three-point shooters trailing the break. He made some absolutely beautiful passes after drawing double-teams in the midpost. He made skip passes to shooters setting up behind back screens. He found JJ Hickson cutting through the lane.

Except for the two times LeBron set up Z with mid-range jumpers, all of his assists in the first quarter led to shots at the rim or three-pointers. It’s obvious to say, but I’ll say it anyways: LeBron completely dominated the game without needing to score. No Cavalier other than LeBron had more than one assist, and the Cavs still recorded five more assists than the Pacers on the night. Amazing. The first quarter was the one that decided the game, and it was all made possible by LeBron’s display of playmaking.

LeBron had a great game on the defensive end as well. He spent lots of time guarding Danny Granger on the ball, and Granger finished 6-23 from the field. In fact, the Pacer swingmen combined to shoot 18-56 from the field, and shot four combined free throws. LeBron was also an absolute monster on the weak side, recording two steals and four absolutely crushing blocks. Danny Granger, you are excluded from chicken cutlet night.

-The good news is that LeBron absolutely dominated the game while having one of his worst scoring nights of the season. The bad news is that LeBron had one of his worst scoring nights of the season. LeBron shot 6-18 from the field, and 2-11 from outside of the paint.

Some nights, asking LeBron to take on this many playmaking duties is going to hamper his ability to score effectively, and Friday was one of those nights. With the defense completely focused on LeBron, he wasn’t able to find the kind of space he wanted to get to the rim or set himself up with easy jumpers. Brandon Rush did a very good job of staying in front of him in the half-court, and was able to force LeBron into a lot of bad jumpers at the end of the shot clock. The offense definitely got stagnant in the third quarter, and LeBron went 2-9 from 19 feet or deeper during the period.

LeBron also missed seven free throws, which is the most free throws he’s missed since the Bradley Center Game last season. LeBron has now missed 19 free throws in his last four games. He missed 24 free throws in all of November, and 31 in all of December. One of the great things about LeBron’s improvement over the years is how much more comfortable I am with him on the line, so let’s hope he shakes this mini-slump from the line off quickly. Even in a blowout, missed free throws drive me absolutely insane, especially from LeBron. They make me physically ill. I mention this to try and jinx whatever bad mojo has been happening when LeBron’s been at the line the last few games.

But lest we lose focus, even though LeBron only had a TS of 42.3% in this game, it was a good an example as any of why LeBron’s the clear-cut favorite for MVP at this point in the year. His all-around game is just that good.

-Shaq was an absolute beast. He caught the ball at or inside the circle, and the Pacers had no answer for him. They fouled him, they tried to double-team him, they prayed. None of it worked. Shaq powered through double-teams, used the glass, pushed defenders out of his way, and put air under his hooks, and the ball kept going through. Shaq finished the night 8-10 from the floor, with only three of his baskets coming off of assists, and drew 10 fouls on the Pacers. On the defensive end, Shaq was able to hold Roy Hibbert to a 2-9 shooting performance before Hibbert fouled out. Absolute dominance on both ends from Shaq.

-Varejao and AP’s offensive games have both fallen off without a point guard to set them up with the shots they like. Varejao only took two shots in 23 minutes, and Parker finished 2-9 from the field.

-Jamario had a rough game, going 1-4 from the field. Jawad, on the other hand, made all three of his three-point attempts and only missed one field goal all night. Apparently it would upset the balance of the universe if both Jawad and Moon played well on the same night.

-Even though there was some garbage time involved, I feel it’s still worth mentioning that the Pacers scored nine points in the fourth quarter.

-The Pacers took 23 more shots than the Cavs in this game, but a lot of that was because of the free throw discrepancy. The Cavs shot 44 free throws. The Pacers shot five. Yipes.

Alright, that’s all for tonight. Have a great weekend, campers.

20 Responses to “Recap: Cavs 94, Pacers 73 (Or, The Time The Cavs Didn’t Need A Point Guard To Make A Point)”

Uh, what’s with Granger? Is that how he plays now? Typically against the Cavs (or LeBron) he’s plays possessed, but tonight he was all chucking. I would expect some of that was LeBron’s D, but some had to be Danny too.

Interestingly, I noticed LeBron really putting a lot of ball pressure on Granger out on the perimeter. It’s almost like he did the exact opposite of what I wrote about in my blog this week. That is how you stop a guy like Granger, you make him put the ball on the floor and work for his shots.

This game (as well as this entire month) is basically a reminder that people that don’t watch Cavs games really can’t appreciate LeBron the way we do.

He was so by far and away the best player on the floor tonight, yet his TS% leads you to believe he hurt the team. He still doesn’t quite have Jordan’s offensive game, but he is the best all-around basketball player I have ever seen play. He amazed me tonight that he could be so off with his shot and yet completely dominate the game and give the Cavs a 20 point victory on the road.

Also, 4 times tonight the Cavs grabbed an offensive rebound off a missed 2nd FT. It is very impressive how well this team can tip the ball to each other. Andy, Jamario, and Z are all masters at getting a finger on the ball and tipping it into the backcourt.

Ok, what I saw from the Pacers was maybe one of the worst performances I’ve seen from a team all season. They gave no effort at any point. Tsunami alreayd mentioned the insane amount of tipouts the Cavs got after missed FTs and that is mostly just lack of effort from the other team.

THere was one play in particular. In the first half, the Pacers had the ball at the top of the key and it got deflected out to around the 3 point line. The ball was barely moving and was maybe 4-5ft away from Granger. Granger literally didn’t even move towards the ball and allowed LeBron, who was about 15 ft away initially come racing in a clean it up. LeBron went dow nthe court and I’m not kidding Granger didn’t even half-jog to get back. Nothing actually came of the fast break but if I were O’Brien I’d have benched him for the rest of the game. Did anyone else notice this play at all? Cause it was stunning to me.

Oh, and if the Cavs end up settling for Murphy, they had seriously better not even consider trading JJ Hickson. I mean, Murphy might not even be as good as Hickson is right now. That is how little I think of Troy Murphy. Cavs nation had better wake up and realize the guy is fairly terrible.

Yeah, Troy Murphy is terrible. After watching Jamison against the Cavs twice, and Murphy against the Cavs twice, its not even close. Both teams are awful and going nowhere, but at least Jamison still tries. And he’s just the better player. I don’t care how old he is. He will be the third or fourth option when he’s here. Its not like he is going to age like KG, Pierce, or Allen…. coincidentally, all three of those guys look REALLY old this year. I don’t think people realize how important Rondo has been to that team this year. If Rondo goes down, the C’s are screwed.

Hey JK, since you seem to be able to dig up any and every stat imaginable, is there a website that can calculate the number of “near triple doubles” LBJ has recorded? How many times he has come up either one rebound or one assist shy? I feel like he’s done it 5 times this month alone. I can’t even imagine how many times he has come up 1 or even 2 assists shy with how many times a game he makes a great pass and someone misses a wide open shot.

I’m having a philosophical struggle this afternoon: who do I root for in the Lakers-Celtics game tomorrow?

I despise both teams pretty much equally. At this point I think I’d prefer to see the Lakers fail, but I’d hate for a win over LA to be the kick in the ass Boston needs to start playing like a top 2 team in the league again.

Ben, whenever there is a situation like tomorrow I always want the team that should win to win – Boston is @ home so the lakers will have to play really well to beat them – we don’t want that. We basically want no team to get any better while we add pieces and improve

@BradleyH. I agree with you there. And it isn’t even his skill set, it’s his obvious lack of effort. Can’t build around a guy who doesn’t care (unless the guy who doesn’t care is immensely great…kind of like Shaq). It’s the exact same way I feel about Amare. I don’t get the love affair with the guy and Charles Barkley was right the other night. You can’t give someone 100 million dollars if he isn’t your best player (unless you’re the Magic and like to throw money down the toilet). Neither of those two are franchise players for a multitude of reasons.

As far as Boston vs. LA I’m taking the approach of who I most want to face in the 2nd round of the playoffs. I think the team we match up best with is Atlanta. After that, I’d like to see Boston get homecourt against Orlando so I’m pretty much rooting for BOston here on out to win and get the 2nd seed. On a side note, I’m rooting for the Magic to get matched up with the Raptors. I think of all the bottom 4 playoff teams the one team who can spring an upset is the Raps if they get Orlando. They have the formula to beat them. Pull Dwight HOward out of the paint, and take advantage of their poor perimiter defense (It is really really bad now w/o Alston or Lee, who were both better on the ball defenders than Nelson and Carter).

I’ve talked about the seeding issues at length with various people, and I’m just glad our jumbles aren’t quite as bad as out West (we have eight teams that are probably going to make the playoffs, with 6 teams at least six games away). The Cavs match up well against the Hawks, better against the Magic than last year, and inversely well with the Celtics corresponding to health. Assuming that they are at full health, though, they are probably the team we don’t want to face. Thus, I will be happy with any configuration that requires the Magic to come here for the second round. Now, the Hawks may have gained some confidence at this point, but they may just as likely be burnt out from having to grind out two series (not to mention the fact that Crawford is still a playoff rookie).
However, I’m almost equally worried about the Cavs drawing the Bobcats in the first round (or even the second). The Bobcats have trouble winning on the road, and that’s well-documented, but they are the ONLY team to beat the Cavs in Cleveland since the first week of November (and thus have us 2-1 in the season series so far). The Heat are nearly as worrying due to the sheer Wade effect, but the Cats are 21-13 since two losses after the Capt. Jack trade (that’s a 51-win pace). Is it crazy of me to think that against the right team they might grab a series win?

Looking over Lebron’s boxes quickly, he’s been 1 short on something 3x this year, and 2 short on something 5x. (Seems like at least 80% of his games end with him combining for at least 15 ast/reb, which probably gives the illusion of being near a triple double night in and night out.)

I just can’t see the bobcats winning a series because they just don’t have enough shot makers. It’s very hard to win 7 games with one guy who can go make plays on the offensive end. The Bulls are probably weaker this year when it comes to the playoffs because of no Ben Gordon…really after Rose no1 else on that team can create on offense now. I actually think the Raptors have the best chance at stealing a series if they get the Magic in the first round. That is a first round I’d lik to see (although I think the Cavs match up best against the Raps).

We’ll need to wait and see after the Cavs and Bobcats have one more go at each other. I’ll be concerned if the ‘Cats beat them again. Remember that last year the Magic beat the Cavs in the playoffs after dominating them in Orlando and playing a close game in Cleveland. Also, remember the Mavericks were upset by the Warriors in 06-07 after the Warriors won the regular season series.

So far, the Bobcats know how to shut down the Cavs in the last few minutes and the Cavs seem to have little to no answer on how to defend Wallace and Jackson. But again, I think we’ll know more after their next game.

Of course, after that, none of the teams are that threatening. Chicago is playing better, but they are still a mess. The Bucks just aren’t good enough. And no one else really has a shot at the playoffs.

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Nate Smith is an Associate Editor. He grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and moved to NE Ohio in 2000. He adopted the Cavs in 2003 and graduated from Kent State in 2009 with a BA in English. He can be contacted at oldseaminer@gmail.com or @oldseaminer on Twitter.

Tom Pestak is an Associate Editor. He's from the west side of Cleveland and lives and (mostly) dies by the success and (mostly) failures of his beloved teams. You can watch his fanaticism during Cavs games @tompestak.

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